


try to wake up

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [72]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Cats, M/M, Pumpkins, Resurrection, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-31 01:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: They do not, in fact, bone down and praise Satan.What happens is this: Billy helps Steve shovel dirt back into his grave, and then Steve drives them home.





	try to wake up

**Author's Note:**

> Day 14 of October. Prompts were: pumpkins, scars, resurrection, paranoia, hours, cats, and pet.
> 
> I uh, wanted something a little more lighthearted because I had my first ever night terror the other night and I think I just need to... not think of spooky things for a day. Sequel to [bury a friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854007), the one shot that I wrote for the first of October, because why not.

They do not, in fact, bone down and praise Satan.

What happens is this:

Billy helps Steve shovel dirt back into his grave, and then Steve drives them home. It’s a quiet drive, the radio a low hum in the background, and Steve keeps the windows rolled down the whole time. The stink is invasive, clinging, and he knows that he’ll have to scrub down the seats himself, because taking it to a car wash would lead to people asking questions.

When they get back to Steve’s place, Steve hustles Billy into a bath, then a shower, then a bath again, this time scented with lavender and rose petals. Billy gives him shit about it, but Steve tells him that smelling girly is worth it if it covers the stink.

Afterwards, they sleep - Billy for fifteen hours and Steve for twenty.

Say what you will about witchcraft, but raising the dead takes it out of you. Those are just the facts.

When he wakes, Billy is still lying next to him, a cat perched on one hip. He’s stroking it’s spine gently, from the crown of it’s head to the tip of it’s tail. When he notices that Steve is awake, he nods at the cat meaningfully.

“When’d you get this guy?”

Steve turns over, burying his nose in the pillow. His mouth is gummy and he’s still groggy, his head like a fog.

“Couple weeks ago,” he mumbles, drooling on the pillowcase. He wipes his chin and groans. “Mom thought it was about time I had a familiar.”

Billy hums, seemingly engaged in a staring match with the animal. He won’t win. Steve’s tried.

“It have a name?”

Steve shrugs. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Billy looks at Steve incredulously. “You’ve had this thing for weeks and you still haven’t given it a name?”

Steve snorts. “He’ll pick one eventually. Give him some time, a name’s a big thing.”

“What have you been calling it in the meantime?”

“Cat, mostly.”

Steve sighs, pushing himself heavily into a sitting position. His bones feel like they’re made of stone. Billy is still looking a little offended, so Steve huffs and reaches out to the cat. It pushes up into the warmth and solid pressure of his hand, purring loudly, it’s green-gold eyes heavy-lidded in pure bliss. Steve laughs.

“C’mon,” he says. “Get up. We’ve got work to do.”

Billy looks up at him, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He’s bare-chested, mostly because he couldn’t be talked into sleeping with a shirt on, and the boxers that Steve had loaned him are riding low on his hips. There are scars up his sides and at the very center of his chest that look like mouths, but he still looks tempting. Provocative. Good enough to eat.

“What kind of work?” he asks.

Steve smiles cryptically. “You’ll see.”

“I hope you know that you’re a paranoid asshole,” Billy tells him three hours later. They’re stomping through a pumpkin field with maybe half a dozen other people, but none of them are gawking, wondering why one of the victims of the gas explosion at Starcourt Mall is walking among them.

That’s because Steve is good at what he does.

The illusion that he’d crafted fits Billy like a well-tailored suit. To Steve’s eyes, it’s a glimmer, a bit of a hazy shroud clinging to the corners of Billy’s body. To everyone else, it makes him look like somebody else. Anybody else. Someone with brown hair or black hair, with muddy eyes and an unremarkable face.

It’s a good glamour, made even better because he knows that it’s _killing_ Billy to know that when people look at him, they don’t see the coiffed hair, the sculpted cheekbones, or the heart-stopping smile. He isn’t _pretty_ anymore, not to anyone in Hawkins. He’s just a stranger in an old pair of jeans and a Metallica t-shirt.

He’s right, though. Steve _is_ paranoid. It comes with the territory of growing up a witch in a place that would probably burn him alive if given half a reason.

“It’s a necessary evil,” Steve tells him, trying to keep the smugness from his voice.

Judging by the nasty look that Billy shoots him, he wasn’t quite successful.

“What are we doing here, anyway?” Billy grumbles, kicking out at a rotting pumpkin as they pass. His foot collides, and the flesh of the pumpkin gives with a squelch.

“We’re picking out a pumpkin,” Steve says cheerfully. At Billy’s look, he admits, “We’re also taking your glamour for a test spin.”

Billy is quiet for a while, and they walk the rows in silence. Steve stops every few feet to inspect the pumpkins, but mostly, he’s watching Billy for a reaction. By the time he’s found the right pumpkin, a nice sturdy round one so picture perfect that he privately thinks he’ll bring it home to find the insides crawling with worms, Billy still hasn’t given him one.

His face is pensive, almost thoughtful.

Once they’re back in the car though, he turns to Steve and asks, “What are you going to tell my family?”

Steve blinks. “We aren’t going to tell them anything. As far as they know, you died in July. You’re worm food, Billy.”

Billy’s nose wrinkles and something that is almost, but not quite anger flickers across his features.

“What about _Max_?” he spits out, quick and biting.

“What about her?”

“She- she knows about all this shit, right?” Billy asks, shoving a hand through his tangled curls. His fingers are twitching a little, so Steve wordlessly passes him a cigarette. He takes it, grabbing the lighter from the center console and brings it to the tip of the smoke. Fire spouts from the end and the cigarette flares to life between them.

“So?”

“_So_, what’s the harm in telling _her_?”

Steve stops to think about it. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about telling the kids before. This, who he is, has very little to do with him being a witch. He doesn’t regularly practice. He’s not part of a coven. He can’t make people do his bidding with a wiggle of the nose. He’s just… Steve. Who is also capable of bringing the dead back to life on accident or making the trees outside of his house burst into bloom despite the fact that they’re pines.

And it’s not like the kids would hate him for it. They’ve seen their share of fucked up shit by now. They know Steve. Dustin would probably think it was cool.

Carefully, Steve asks, “Would you want to?”

Billy spends a minute chewing on his answer, gaze distant as the fields roll by.

“Yes,” he says, quietly, just when Steve is starting to get antsy. “Yeah, I think I would.”

“She’ll be mad,” Steve says, and he can tell that Billy knows what he means. Not that she’ll be mad he’s back, but that he left in the first place.

Billy chuckles, almost fondly, and lets his head tip back against the headrest. “Yeah, she will. She’s a little spitfire.”

Steve is quiet for the rest of the drive, and to his surprise, Billy is too. When he’s pulling into the driveway, he breaks it with a question.

“When do you want to do it?”

Billy glances at him. “Tomorrow?”

Steve sighs. “Yeah, okay. We’ll tell her tomorrow.”


End file.
